Commentary

Live From St. Louis, It Was Sunday Night!

I’m Martha Raddatz from ABC News with Anderson Cooper of CNN. Welcome to the second presidential debate, a town hall convened at Washington University in St. Louis, Mo. This is the second of three debates between the candidates for the presidency, the Republican Candidate Donald J. Trump. And his Democratic opponent Secretary Hillary Clinton.

We’ll begin this evening with the economy. It has, of course, been slow to recover from the Great Recession of 2008, and some sectors have been hit especially hard. Manufacturing, energy, and perhaps most of all media. Tens of thousands of jobs have been lost, many publications have folded, and formerly huge profit margins have vanished. Our first question is from social media. Submitting on Facebook is Jonah of New York City:

“The online revolution was supposed to save the day, lowering barriers to entry and reducing hard costs, but ad rates are too low even to, you know, feed a buzz. What are your solutions for saving the media?”

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Raddatz: “By a coin toss, you are first to respond. Mr. Trump?”

Trump: “It’s a great, great question. Incredible question. Because even though the failing media is against me, ganging up on me with many, many totally unfair stories, I have friends -- and some of them, by the way, have also been obviously bought off by Hillary -- but Sean Hannity and I are great friends and also I used to be very close to Joe Goebbels and the point is we are getting killed, killed, by China, which is dumping zeros and ones on us like never before in the history of the world, in the history of the Universe, and I don’t mean the chubby Universe who loved the burritos, I’m talking eating our lunch big time. We’re gonna build up CPMs, we’re gonna make ad blocking illegal. I’m gonna appoint a special prosecutor on ad blocking, we’re gonna allow individual tracking through your phone, your IP address, your hypothalamus, whatever. And you know what’s she gonna do? Trust me, it won’t be email marketing.”

Raddatz: “Your time is up, Mr. Trump.”

Trump: “You don’t stop her. Me you cut off, but not her.”

Raddatz: “Secretary Clinton hasn’t spoken yet.”

Trump: “Not true.”

Cooper: “Mr. Trump, we have it on tape. Secretary Clinton hasn’t said a word.”

Trump: “Yes she has, and it’s all lies, believe me.” 

Cooper: “Secretary Clinton, two minutes.”

Clinton: “Thank you, Anderson, and thank you Jonah for your thoughtful question. Yes, this is a great concern of mine. In my more than 30 years in public life, I have spent 80 years helping kids get access to the media, helping women get access to the media, helping female African-American kids with disabilities get access to the media. I never went to bed in the entire 1980s or 90s because I was rolling up my sleeves in a bipartisan way with presidents and Senators and hardworking ordinary Americans who just want dignity and fair access to the media -- people like Consuela Perez, a working mom in Gila Flats, New Mexico, who held 9 jobs just to make ends meet but could not get the Saturday Evening Post. because it had stopped existing. And that’s why, if I should have good fortune enough to become your president, my first day in office I will submit to Congress the Saturday Evening Post Resurrection Act. But my opponent has no such plans, or any stated policies, because he’s too busy avoiding paying income tax."

Cooper: "Mr. Trump, one minute to respond."

Trump: "First of all, I paid tax. Just today, I bought a pack of Tic Tacs, because I heard Paula Jones had gotten pretty hot, frankly, and I got them at the airport -- $2.99 by the way, for Tic Tacs, which is outrageous, because I remember when a whole pack of Doublemint was a nickel, and by the way those twins were something back in the day, weren’t they? -- and I paid 18 cents tax. And I gave the salesgirl a five -- a great, great Hispanic Latina gal, by the way -- and she handed me a buck but dropped my 83 cents in coins into the Twix bars and that’s fine. Maybe it’s not politically correct but, come on, folks, let’s be honest, we’re not getting their rocket scientists, and if she kills someone she will be deported, I promise you that. Also, ISIS, emails, Benghazi, Monica Lewinsky, NAFTA…."

Raddatz: “The next question…."

Trump: “You cut me off again."

Raddatz: “The next question is about sexual assault…."

Trump: “ISIS. ISIS. George Soros. Bernie Sanders bad judgment. Bernie Sanders bad judgment. Bernie Sanders bad judgment. Iran. Iran, Libya. Isis.”

3 comments about "Live From St. Louis, It Was Sunday Night!".
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  1. David Reich from Reich Communications, Inc., October 10, 2016 at 11:51 a.m.

    Bob, you really didn't have to change much for this column, did you?  Scary.

  2. Cliff Foyster from Dionysian Media, October 10, 2016 at 12:01 p.m.

    Excellent!

  3. Scott Mckain from McKain Performance Group, Inc., October 10, 2016 at 12:06 p.m.

    Great post, Bob -- just one thing: fact checking your column has ascertained that the Saturday Evening Post still exists and continues to publish:  http://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/

    (Everything else you wrote was spot on!)

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